Part One: Summary
The provision of civil rights normally involves a careful balancing act. On the one hand, there are the rights of the individual while on the other, there is the right to the community at large. In many cases, the rights of the individual will be on a collision cause with those of the community. The subject of the death penalty involves a scenario where the rights of the individual collide with those of the community (Bardes, Shelley and Schmidt, 2014). Normally, the death sentence combines both a punitive aspect and a preventative aspect. First, the death sentence serves to punish a convict who has visited inordinate horrors on the community. Such horrors include aggravated murder, multiple murders or the murder of the vulnerable such as little children. Secondly, the death sentence is preventative as it eliminates the chances that the same individual may undertake similar crimes in the future. Conversely, the preventative effect of the death sentence includes its deterrence on individuals who would want to commit such crimes in the future. It is due to the above that the death sentence seeks to meet the civil rights of the community at large.
It would also be correct to argue that the death sentence infringes on the civil rights of the defendant during the process of hearing and the convict after the trial. In express terms, the death sentence deprives the convict the right to life as expressly provided for by the 14 th Amendment of the United States Constitution (Bardes, Shelley, and Schmidt, 2014). The said Amendment expressly prohibits the US government of any state government from making or enforcing any laws that deprive any person from the right to life, liberty or property. However, the inclusion of right to liberty and properly within the provisions of the 14 th Amendment weakens the argument from the perspective of the individual. If the 14 th Amendment were absolute, no court would ever incarcerate, or fine convicts. Jailing or fining would amount to depriving the individual of liberty or property. It is, therefore, in the interpretation of the rights as provided for in the Bill of Rights that lawmakers and courts determine the right balance between the rights of the individual and the rights of the community at large. The courts and lawmakers have for decades now sought to balance these conflicting rights with regard to the death sentence (Bardes, Shelley and Schmidt, 2014).
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Whereas the death sentence debate has been ongoing only for the last few decades, the death sentence itself has been in existence for millennia. Different parts of the world have the death sentence in their histories for a variety of crimes or even wrongs. In many cases, authorities would undertake death sentences in cruel ways such as gruesome torture to death. In some places, states would go to great lengths to develop advances machines and mechanism to make executions as protracted, painful and shameful. Examples of such executions include drawing and quartering, burning at the stake, impalement and cooking people inside the Brazen Bull. Further, states would carry executions out publicly as a spectacle and as a means to send a message to the society. However, the modern era came with advanced levels of civilization and sophistication that resulted in the limitation of the pain and shame that comes with execution (Bardes, Shelley and Schmidt, 2014). For a start, executions became a private affair, witnessed only by a few. Further, states developed more benign and efficient execution processes such as beheadings, hangings, electrocution, and lethal injections. Whereas any form of execution may sound cruel, sudden deaths are benign when compared to deaths such as impalement that involved several days of agony. Even with the improvements in execution processes, the debate about the death sentence inter alia with regard to personal civil rights versus community rights continued into the 20 th century.
The 20 th -century debate on civil rights took place mainly in courts of law and the various chambers of parliament. The debate began in the courts of law and related to the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution. Part of the provisions of the Eighth Amendment prohibits the imposition of cruel and unusual punishments. Those who argued for individual civil rights indicated that any form of killing is in itself a cruel and unusual punishment. The state could not cure the cruelty and unusual nature of the punishment by making the process mild. The defenders of personal civil rights gained an initial victory through the case of Furman v. Georgia , 408 U.S. 238 (1972) (Bardes, Shelley and Schmidt, 2014). In the said case, the Supreme Court of the United States found that any execution was indeed a cruel and unusual punishment. At the time, the end of death sentences seemed imminent. However, proponents of community rights who believed in the death sentence took their argument to houses of parliament. State legislatures amended death sentence rules and procedures, inter alia by a bifurcated process. Under the new process, the determination of guilt and decision for death sentencing would take place in separated processes. Once again, proponents of individual civil rights moved to the court but in the case of Gregg v. Georgia, Proffitt v. Florida, Jurek v. Texas, Woodson v. North Carolina, and Roberts v. Louisiana , 428 U.S. 153 (1976) commonly known simply as Gregg v. Georgia, the US Supreme Court found in favor of the death sentence (Bardes, Shelley and Schmidt, 2014).
The position in Gregg v. Georgia remains the applicable law in death sentences with 31 states, the military and federal governments still imposing death sentences. However, the fact that death sentences still subsist does not mean that individual rights lost to the rights of the collective. For a start, there have been major changes in the way capital offense trials are carried out. Elaborate appellate processes are also in place. Further, death sentences no longer result in executions. For example, the federal government has carried out less than five executions in the last three decades. California has the highest numbers of death sentences but a very low rate of executions. However, in Southern states, led by Texas, death sentencing and actual executions are still highly prevalent (Bardes, Shelley and Schmidt, 2014).
Part II: Reflection
The debate of deaths sentence should begin not on the issue of laws, due process or human rights but rather the issue of human dignity. Deaths sentencing and execution involves the majority ganging up to put someone to death. The majority pays taxes and uses that money to conduct investigations, then a trial that results in a conviction against the individual. Currently, most criminal trials involve a near-hapless defendant coming against powerful government machinery. Most defendants opt to take a plea of guilty even when they are innocent because they do not stand a chance against the state in a criminal trial. In many serious cases, the fact that a defendant may be sentenced to death acts as a motivation for a plea of guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence such as life with no possibility of parole! After conviction, authorities then use the taxes to carefully plan and carry out the death of the convict. Rationally, the person who pays for killing is the actual killer, not the person who carries it out. The issue of death sentence puts the blood of convicts in the hands of all taxpayers. On that point alone, it is my honest belief that death sentences and executions are morally and legally wrong.
However, there is a plausible alternative argument that death sentences and executions are a matter of law, not morals or ethics. Indeed, the community elects leaders who enact laws that provide for death sentences. Death sentences are thus a manifestation of the will of the community from a democratic perspective. If the people change their minds about the death sentence, they can have the laws changed to provide for alternative punishment. Under this argument, the death sentence is a necessity. For example, despite most modern communities being highly civilized, some crude and cruel elements still exist, such as those who rape and kill small children. The death sentence is necessary to deter such individuals and eliminate them from the community in order to protect law-abiding citizens. Finally, proponents of the death sentence also argue that the law ensures that only the worst elements in the society get death sentences.
Whereas there may be some merit to the pro-death sentence arguments above, such merits are not absolute while some of the argument may also be misplaced. For a start, the fact that a majority have decided in something does not make it necessarily right. After all, Hitler was a populist leader, supported by an overwhelming majority of Germans. Almost everyone agrees that Hitler was a wrong choice hence the majority can be wrong in some circumstances. Secondly, death sentences and executions are seldom a deterrence. For example, anyone willing to rape and kill a little child is most probably deranged and psychologically troubled. Such a person rarely thinks about consequences and no potential sentence can act as a deterrence. A death sentence pushes the entire community down to the level of the deterred person instead of enabling the community to assist those who are troubled within it. Finally, death sentences come from trials run by humans and essentially, human beings make mistakes. Indeed, in a number of instances, individuals sentenced to death have later been found innocent, in some cases, posthumously. Death sentences are a permanent end, stemming from a potentially erroneous process, hence cannot be right.
References
Bardes, B. A., Shelley, M. C., & Schmidt, S. W. (2014). American government and politics today: the essentials . Boston, MA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning.
